Moscow Celebrates its 871st Birthday

Our picks for the best of City Day

There will be dancing in the street.

mos.ru

This Saturday is City Day, when Moscow celebrates its 871st birthday, but all weekend there will be plenty of festivals, special events at just about every museum or gallery, concerts and guided tours — not to mention fireworks. Here’s the cream of the crop carefully selected for you by The Moscow Times.

Moskino

Moskino is organizing several free film showings around the city, divided into two programs: one devoted to the image of Moscow in cinema and the second one to alternative documentary films. In the latter category the most interesting one is “50,” devoted to the 50th anniversary of Pakhom, an artist and a public personality. After the film there will be a Q&A session with the director and Pakhom himself on Sept. 8 at the Fakel Theater (7 p.m.). The rest of the schedule is here and here.

Fakel Theater. 15/16 Shosse Entuziastov. Metro Avtomotornaya.

Maker Faire Moscow

One of the many festivals happening over the weekend is Maker Faire Moscow. The format, which comes from California, is a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. Anyone can be a “maker.” All you need is create something using traditional or modern tools. The Moscow edition will take place in Gorky Park, with support of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and MISiS University of Science and Technology. The festival will have several thematic zones, workshops and public lectures. For details see the organization site.

Gorky Park. 9 Krymsky Val. Metro Oktyabrskaya, Park Kultury.

Maker Faires have traveled the world to get to Moscow.

Courtesy of Eindhoven Maker Faire

Museum of Moscow

Moscow’s namesake museum will also organize a festival of its own during the weekend of celebrations. Its courtyard will welcome its famous local food market with stalls peddling the best street food in the city, while the entrance to all exhibitions will be free and special tours will be organized. For details, see the museum site.

2 Zubovsky Bulvar. Metro Park Kultury

An event in the vast courtyard of the Museum of Moscow.

Courtesy of Museum of Moscow

Mosgortur

Mosgortur, the city’s agency for official guided tours will organize 150 free tours at 55 various museums, memorial apartments, parks and city streets over the weekend. Find out more about the lives of composer Alexander Skryabin, poets Alexander Pushkin or Sergei Yesenin and many, many others. The tours are in Russian, but they definitely welcome foreigners. You can see the schedule and sign up here.

City parks

Every park is preparing something special for City Day. Hermitage Garden will run a twelve-hour theater marathon with performances from all the leading Moscow theater companies, including Meyerhold Center, Taganka Theater, Moscow Ballet and many others. Zaryadye will have a series of concerts and street theater performances, and Krasnaya Presnya Park will organize public lectures on environmentally safe and healthy lifestyles. To see what’s happening in parks all over Moscow, check out the park site.

Sergei Kiselyov / Moskva News Agency

The best seat in town

Panorama 360, an observation platform located on the 89th floor of the Federation Tower in Moskva City, will be one of the best places to view the fireworks on Saturday evening. And it's not just 15 minutes of fireworks. The program includes immersive theater performance and a concert. For details see the site.